Look for an understanding of your constraints
A nonprofit website has to work for donors, program participants, volunteers and the staff keeping it current. A partner should ask which audiences matter most, who maintains the content and which systems are already in place.
Discuss approvals and availability early. If one communications person has to collect content from six program leads, the project needs a workable content plan. Ask how the partner will handle unanswered questions and delayed approvals rather than accepting a schedule that assumes everything is ready.
Find out who will actually do the work
Ask who leads discovery, who designs, who builds and who remains available after launch. Understand how you will communicate, how often you will review progress and how decisions will be recorded.
A small specialist and a larger agency can both be a good fit. The useful question is whether the people assigned have the skills and availability your project needs. Ask what happens during vacations, urgent problems or a change in staffing.
Ask for a demonstration, not just a promise
- Editing: have the partner show how staff would create a typical program or event page.
- Accessibility: ask how keyboard access, forms and screen-reader behavior will be evaluated.
- Integrations: discuss what happens when a donation or CRM connection fails.
- Migration: ask how important old URLs, files and content will be accounted for.
- Training: ask what your staff will be able to do without further development work.
These conversations reveal whether the proposed solution suits the people who will live with it.
Get ownership and ongoing costs in writing
Your agreement should identify ownership of the domain, hosting account, content, design assets and source code, subject to any third-party licenses. Ask which accounts your organization controls and how access is handed over.
List recurring charges separately. Find out whether the site can move to another host or maintenance provider, what would be involved and which licenses would need to change. A clear exit plan makes the relationship easier to understand from the beginning.
Use references to test the working relationship
Ask previous clients what surprised them, how changes were handled and whether staff felt prepared after launch. Ask about a real problem and how it was resolved. This gives you more useful information than asking whether they liked the final design.
Bring your questions and constraints to the conversation. A good fit should make the project clearer, including where the proposed partner is not the right choice. Use the scope worksheet to give every candidate the same starting point.
Prepared by Awesome Cause with AI assistance. These guides provide planning advice; project scope and estimates are agreed individually.
